SmartMotor Mixing Device
Programmed a Moog Animatics SmartMotor for Savannah River National Laboratory to control a mixing device using torque mode. Implemented torque ramp profiles to smoothly accelerate and decelerate the motor shaft through a defined number of rotations, preventing mechanical shock while maintaining precise and repeatable mixing cycles.
This project involved programming a Moog Animatics SmartMotor, an integrated servo motor with an onboard motion controller, to drive a mixing device. The goal was precise, repeatable shaft rotation with smooth acceleration and deceleration to avoid mechanical shock to the mixing assembly.
Torque Mode Control
Rather than commanding the motor by position or velocity directly, the control strategy used torque mode, setting the output torque to ramp the motor up and down in a controlled fashion. This approach gave fine-grained control over the mechanical load applied during acceleration and deceleration, which was critical for the mixing application's process requirements.
Rotation Profiling
The program was structured to execute a defined number of shaft rotations per mixing cycle. Torque ramp-up and ramp-down curves were tuned to bring the motor smoothly to operating speed and back to rest, with the cycle count tracked onboard the SmartMotor's controller to ensure consistency across runs.
Moog Animatics SMI
All programming was done through the Moog Animatics SmartMotor Interface (SMI) using the SmartMotor's native command language. Motor parameters, torque limits, and motion profiles were configured and validated directly within the SMI environment before deployment to the device.